Logistics Orchestrator reduces costs in the global spare parts business

Global spare parts logistics is complex, non-transparent and often expensive. With a new online platform, DB Schenker wants to help customers in the industrial and aerospace sectors to eliminate these disadvantages.

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“Logistics Orchestrator” is the name of the system used by DB Schenker and customers to centrally manage all spare parts orders within a global sales network. According to the specific customer needs, the processes are precisely predefined. This allows orders to be managed automatically. This enables DB Schenker to make replacement parts in globally lean supply chains faster and easier, while at the same time lowering inventories. Logistics costs can be reduced by up to 30 percent.

Special digital solution for customers

“With our Connect Initiative we are driving the digitization of our logistics products at high speed. Now, with our Logistics Orchestrator, we are launching a special digital solution specifically for our customers in the industrial and aviation sectors, “says Markus Sontheimer, Chief Information and Chief Digitization Officer of Schenker AG.

For this purpose, the Logistics Orchestrator brings together local and regional distribution networks and eliminates redundancies in stocks and transports. “The heart of the Logistics Orchestrator is our aftermarket expertise, “says Sontheimer. “Thus, preconfigured processes become templates for global supply chains.”

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Online booking at DB Schenker

The logistics service provider has been offering its customers online booking solutions for quite some time now. Since 2017, DB Schenker’s branches have been networking with customers and transport companies via the digital freight platform Drive4Schenker in order to handle part and full load transports. In addition, since 2018, customers from many European countries have access to the continent’s largest land transport network via the “connect 4 land” booking platform. The two platforms “connect 4 Sea” and “Connect 4 Air” are soon to follow.

Control from a single source

DB Schenker is now further developing the platform idea in spare parts logistics for selected sectors. So far, logistics in this area of global distribution networks has been largely independently coordinated by many stakeholders at the regional or local level. Frequently, order management was also carried out locally in various companies with different ERP systems and business rules. This decentralized control meant that supply chains lost transparency. Correspondingly high storage and transport costs were the result. With the “Logistics Orchestrator”, both global delivery and order management are now digitally controlled “from a single source”.

Axel Novak is a freelance journalist in Berlin. For more than a decade, he has been involved with the logistics industry and its changes. Axel Novak writes articles for newspapers, for magazines, and for companies.